Costly Prison Repairs Desperately Needed in Michigan

 A recent article in the Detroit Free Press ("DOC finds problems with own report," 12/26/21) highlighted the many structural repairs needed in Michigan prisons. But it also highlighted the discrepancies between what the Department claims in public filings and what it actually needs. A recent report compiled by the MDOC outlined $255 million in needed repairs throughout Michigan's dozens of prisons. But MDOC spokesman Chris Gautz had qualms with some of the report's verbiage. 

The report repeatedly listed some repairs as needed due to potentially "dangerous" or "life threatening" conditions. Gautz disagreed with such descriptions for many of the necessary repairs. While the Department agrees that many repairs are needed, and some desperately, apparently it cannot agree on whether or not the conditions necessitating repairs are "dangerous" or "life threatening." The report that Department spokesman Gautz contradicts was prepared by the MDOC itself, as part of a request for federal dollars. 

It is hardly surprising to find discrepancies in government reports, but one must ask why such verbiage was used by the report's writers if the Department disagrees with such urgency. (Or perhaps the Department simply dislikes having such problems described so clearly.) With so many federal dollars available in this pandemic era, one must wonder if the Department was caught with its hand in the cookie jar. Was urgent language used to increase the odds that the Department would receive federal funds? 

Some of the repairs listed in the DFP article are certainly difficult to imagine as either dangerous or life threatening. But after years of watching patch jobs performed on dangerous and potentially life threatening structural problems in prison, I wonder if these ominous descriptions are applied liberally enough? In no less than three of the four prisons where I have been housed in nearly 13 years, black mold has been a persistent problem. As any medical professional can confirm, black mold is a potentially life threatening problem. 

The article lists both shower wall problems (resulting in black mold) and inefficient windows in the entire facility for the prison where I am housed (MTU in Ionia, Michigan). The single pane windows in each housing unit are highly inefficient. It's possible to keep a cup of water nearly ice cold by simply setting it on the sill next to the window. On the coldest winter nights, it's difficult for the electric wall heaters to keep up with the chillingly cold air blowing in through the old, inefficient windows. 

Nevertheless, you'd be hard pressed to find a single prisoner housed at MTU who would rather have inefficient windows replaced than to have clean water to drink. We'd gladly keep our single-paned, inefficient windows if we could drink water not clouded with iron and who knows what other residue. Years of complaints by prisoners have produced the same results: administrative staff claims testing shows the water is safe to drink, as they sip their bottled water (unavailable to prisoners) because they refuse to drink the water that is apparently good enough for prisoners. 

No, the cities of Benton Harbor and Flint do not hold a monopoly on bad water in Michigan. 

I'm no expert when it comes to whether problems are "dangerous" or potentially "life threatening," but it seems to me that the Michigan Department of Corrections might need outside, third-party experts to review the Department's needed repairs. With a long history of kicking the can down the road, so to speak, an independent review might help to determine what is actually dangerous and potentially life threatening. After all, if such conditions exist (as they surely do) the Department is bound to face more lawsuits for its negligence in failing to fix such problems.